Audience Feedback

To start I will show some general feedback I have given myself about my media production.

From watching my product over and over again, I can see some negatives and positives.

Negatives

• I may of left too many questions unanswered during the first two minutes of my piece.
• There was also problems with the music, I wanted the song to build up but also have the faster beat during the walk, however in movie make I was limited, and could only choose the start and beginning, leaving me with the choice of sacrificing the build up for the majority of the movie, so after long thinking I decided that the majority of the piece was more important than the build up of the song.
• Putting the song name and artist in the opening was also a risk, because it makes it seem like either a music video or credits, but I promised to the artists that I would include that, and I stuck to my word, however it could of been a mistake in the long run and is was a rather risky choice.

Positives

• I think the mise en scene blended well with the overall feel of the movie, the music and visuals produced that "sad" feeling I was going for.
• The shots were all relatively steady and never had anything that shouldn't be in it.
• Used a variety of shots, such as POV, over the shoulder etc.

As Media Studies Production Portfolio Audience Feedback

Negatives

• "maybe could have introduced more camera angles"
• "Leave out song + Artist"
• "looked like a music video"

Some other critism was not really constructive so I have left it out, however it is nice to see some criticism so I can learn from my mistakes and ultimately improve on them.

Positives

• "Good song choice"
• "Blatant Mise en scene"
• "Song works well with visuals"
• "Use of colors good, I liked the change from B/W to colour"

Obviously I am happy to see some positives in there, there were some more, but most just repeated in different forms, this is also very helpful for the learning approach, I can see what people like and dislike, but as my product was not mainstream, I was expecting some criticism as it does not appeal to everyone, one person even said "I do not get the story" considering it was the first two minutes I never planned for them to understand the whole storyline, infact I aimed to leave them guessing, and let there imagination blossom,  but I guess you can't please everyone.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Well my Media piece the number three is a two minute opening of a movie, i have tried to use the conventions of real media products as a template, but then advance on that in my own unique way, for example I have aimed to put more emphasis on images and unanswered questions instead of just force-feeding the information, for example one of the first questions probably asked, who is he? how did he get them scars, why is he wearing a suit, why is he at a cemetery, and who is he visiting, what  or who does the three feathers represent, nearly all of these unanswered in the first two minutes, hopefully to intrigue the audience so they carry on watching. So in a way it does conform with real media products due to its music in the opening credits all stuff like that, but then i developed that into my own unique way so I don't just force-feed the information like some movies do, and yes it may not be so "mainstream" but it is the way I have chosen and its the method of filming I prefer.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From our preliminary task we found out quite a lot about the 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

We also learned about various shots such as the over the shoulder shot, this is common in character conversions, but can also be used in different ways, for example I used it in my movie to show the characters body language along with the feathers and grave to add a more effective mood.

This is a shot from the preliminary task, showing both the body language and the speech of the person providing an excellent shot for conversations between two people.

Another shot, still having the body language and speech present, but from a different angle, however still not breaking the 180 degree rule so the audience do not get confused.

However in my actual piece I decided to use an over the shoulder shot, but higher up, as if it was looking down on the body language and the powerful mise en scene of the feathers on the grave.

There was also another shot I leaned about in the preliminary task, the POV shot, I also realized its true beauty and effect it can have whilst filming with it. The POV shot provides  either close ups of a certain object to highlight where the character is looking, or just direct contact with something or someone making you feel in a way part of the movie.



 In the preliminary as you can see we used the POV shot to highlight the character and get the audience to feel apart of the movie, also showing detailed emotions and expressions of the character opposite.

 However in my media piece I used the POV to highlight the action on kneeling to the gravestone and placing the feathers down, I felt this would be quite a powerful shot, connecting the audience with potentially the saddest part in the clip, or so I hoped.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Well in a way my media product represents a particular social group but in others it doesn't, like its not really a social group that I am trying to represent, more a group of people that share the same misfortune in their life, for example losing people, the ones you loved, getting that feeling off emptiness and just not knowing what to do with your self. Those are the people I am trying to relate to and represent, after all it happens to so many people it should be represented, and most people just need to know there not alone, and maybe this movie can highlight that to other people.
For example some movies have represented the character who has lost pretty much everything, or only holding on to one thing or person.

E.g Law Abiding citizen, it is a powerful movie that represents losing all the family you loved, and fighting to avenge there deaths. As you can tell from this powerful image there are strong emotions through out.

How did you attract/address your audience?

When I realized the type of film I was making, I then realized it was not mainstream, so I wanted to find out what people thought was necessary in a movie opening. We were quite vague with a few questions to get the general feel of what genre's and type of films people liked, and I used people around my age to see if my movie was something that would appeal to them.









 So obliviously I used questions to try and understand my audience and address them face to face to get there real feel about movie openings. I have now realized I am most probably not going to appeal to all the people my age as most boys just like fighting and explosions, however there may be a few that appreciate art house type films and that is what I am aiming for.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Again with answering such a question you first need to establish what type/genre of film you film is. I have already gone for it being an "art house" type film, so now that we have established the type I move on to whom my audience would be.

I can quite easily say it is not for the mainstream audience, but more directed at the smaller group of movie lovers, they go by many names but I am aiming to please some potential Mainstream plus, but more directed at the Aficionados and the Buffs, these are the "specialized" movie lovers. For example the Aficionados do like to associate themselves with specialized films however they tend to watch some main stream titles,unlike the buffs, they usually reject the mainstream cinema as a first choice and always seek out specialized films, often film clubs and societies, so if anything I am aiming to please the Film buffs. And for age and gender, I could see it be quite varied for both, more so age, I couldn't see under 18's watching this movie, but as this film could appeal to so many no matter age or gender, I could see it being most over 20's watching it.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Camera/Filming: To start off I used a Canon HF M306 HD camcorder, this proved to be a handy piece of equipment, not only producing high quality picture in HD, but being light, easy to handle, and a long lasting battery. This producing quite a enjoyable time playing and filming, however a few problems such as holding the camera still, but were soon solved with the trusty tripod, but it can also cause problems such as moving shots the tripod felt rather stiff and gave a slight jolts whilst filming. The transferring onto the computer was also quick and easy, due to the SD card in the camcorder. The camcorder also gave me the freedom to get great quality images with the ability to edit and delete the scenes there and then on the touch screen pad.


Editing: I used the software Imovie for pretty much all my editing work, being a first time user, I found it quite complicated, however it guides you too many help and aid videos of various websites like you tube. So finally after getting the hang of it, I quite enjoyed the editing software, it seemed very user friendly and not that complicated for first time users. I could only find a few faults about the software in my opinion, it did not let you cut and choose the exact points of the music you wanted, it however gave you the awkward option of only being able to move the start and finish, which made it very time consuming to use and match with the visuals, it actually made me change my music opening making the music start off to soon with no real build up. I was not happy with this, but overall it is a good editing software, and I would most probably use it again in the future.



Research: Websites such as You tube gave great options for help or any unanswered questions, for example, there were many step by step videos showing you how to use imovie, as it was my first time using that software. You tube not only helped me in answering my questions, it gave me the opportunity to watch other peoples videos and get advice off more experienced people. There were many occasions were this website had helped me when stuck and not sure what to do whilst editing.


 Facebook/Blogger/Sound Cloud: All three of this websites helped in various ways,


for example I spent hours and hours searching for songs on random websites, then I came across Sound Cloud, it provided the perfect conditions for what I needed, free, copyright free, and available to re-use and modification. All of which I needed for my movie, now all I needed to do was find a song. With the extremely user friendly website I was able to browse and play many songs, finally I found a song and it even gave me the option to email the person or contact him on websites like facebook, you tube or twitter. In fact I used the websites actual mail service, I am still using this website for music browsing and to this day I still love it.


Then Blogger, it provided a perfect layout for all my work to be stored and linked to the "The Spider" and all of my class mates blogs. It was very user friendly and there were many links on you tube for help and advice for making a good working blog. I especially like the ability to pretty much design this blog from almost scratch with the help of various template. This enabled me personally to feel closer to the website as it was made to suit me and what I want it to look like.

Then Facebook, it provided me with some decent feedback from my friends and family about my movie, it also gave me the ability to talk to some artists which songs I liked, however I did not take advantage of that ability.